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Statistical Analysis Methodology

Journal Article

Methodological Considerations for Estimating Policy Effects in the Context of Co-Occurring Policies

Researchers conducted simulations to assess how concurrently implemented policies affected the evaluation of hypothetical state-level policies.

Jul 15, 2022
Tool

Toolkit for Weighting and Analysis of Nonequivalent Groups: A Tutorial for the R TWANG Package

This tutorial describes the use of the TWANG package in R to estimate propensity score weights when there are two treatment groups, and how to use TWANG to estimate nonresponse weights.

Jul 7, 2022
Tool

Toolkit for Weighting and Analysis of Nonequivalent Groups: A Tutorial on the TWANG Shiny App for Two Treatments

This tutorial describes how to use a menu-driven Shiny application based on the Toolkit for Weighting and Analysis of Nonequivalent Groups (TWANG) R package.

Jul 7, 2022
News Release

RAND and Poynter Develop Policy-Focused Educational Opportunities for Journalists

The RAND Corporation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research institution, is partnering with the Poynter Institute, a global nonprofit dedicated to journalistic excellence, to develop education and training for journalists on today's most pressing policy issues and the process of research and analysis.

Jul 6, 2022
Content

RAND x Poynter: Custom Policy Education for Journalists

RAND is partnering with the Poynter Institute to create innovative educational opportunities for journalists. Programming will focus on breaking down the policy research process and how policy issues affect the general public.

Jul 6, 2022
Journal Article

Volunteer Recovery Support for Adolescents: Using Propensity Score Based Methods to Understand Dosage Effects Within a Randomized Controlled Trial

The study used statistical methods designed to approximate RCTs when comparing more than two nonequivalent groups that include an assessment of the potential impact of omitted variables in order to address potential dosage effects for a commonly used evidence based substance use treatment program for adolescents.

Jun 24, 2022
Journal Article

Higher Moments for Optimal Balance Weighting in Causal Estimation

We explore the potential benefit of using higher-order moments in the balancing conditions for covariate-balancing propensity scores and entropy balance.

Jun 24, 2022
Journal Article

A Tutorial Comparing Different Covariate Balancing Methods with an Application Evaluating the Causal Effects of Substance Use Treatment Programs for Adolescents

A state-of-the-art tutorial on how best to implement propensity score weighting analyses.

Jun 24, 2022
Report

Suggestions for Estimating the Effects of State Gun Policies: Commentary on Four Methodological Problems in the Current Literature

In this report, the authors discuss four common methodological problems that they observed in the literature evaluating gun policies and offer suggestions for how future research on gun policies could be improved.

Feb 15, 2022
Blog

What Sounds Do a Million Random Digits Make?

The title of RAND's 1955 classic, A Million Random Digits with 100,000 Normal Deviates, doesn't exactly dance off the page. But Paul Dunham, a sound artist in New Zealand, thought the work could make its own kind of music.

Jan 5, 2022
Journal Article

Moving Beyond the Classic Difference-In-Differences Model: A Simulation Study Comparing Statistical Methods for Estimating Effectiveness of State-Level Policies

Researchers conducted an extensive simulation study to compare the statistical performance of commonly used methods for evaluating state-level opioid policies, including popular difference-in-differences methods.

Dec 15, 2021
Tool

A Toolkit for a Score-Based Balance Metric for the Synthetic Control Method: A Tutorial for the synth_asmd STATA Program

This toolkit includes background information on the synth_asmd program for Stata, a tutorial on its use, and the sample code and datasets used in the tutorial.

Aug 24, 2021
Journal Article

Statistical Analysis of Presidential Pardons

This report is a study of pardon-petition evaluations performed by the Office of the Pardon Attorney, a unit in the Department of Justice.

Jul 6, 2021
Multimedia

State-Level Opioid Policy Analyses: Moving Beyond the Classic Difference-in-Differences Model

This workshop provides an overview of key methodological challenges faced when evaluating the effectiveness of state-level policy using annual state-level data, as well as potential solutions and practice guidelines.

Jun 24, 2021
Tool

Toolkit for Weighting and Analysis of Nonequivalent Groups: A Tutorial on the TWANG Shiny Application for Time-Varying Treatments

This tutorial demonstrates the use of the Toolkit for Weighting and Analysis of Nonequivalent Groups Shiny application for time-varying treatments -- for cases when the time-varying treatment or exposure is binary -- using an illustrative example.

May 14, 2021
Journal Article

Improving Care Experiences for Patients and Caregivers at End of Life: A Systematic Review

Previous reviews examined palliative care improvements or available measures but none explicitly on improving care experiences. We reviewed literature on improving patient and/or caregiver end-of-life care experiences.

Apr 7, 2021
Journal Article

An Audit Tool for Longitudinal Assessment of the Health-Related Characteristics of Urban Neighborhoods: Implementation Methods and Reliability Results

To identify neighborhood features that are predictors of health, objective assessments of the environment are used. In this paper, we have described implementation methods, reliability results and lessons learned to inform future studies of change.

Mar 16, 2021
Journal Article

Brief Tutorial for twangContinuous

This document provides a brief tutorial on using the twangContinous package to estimate causal effects for continuous exposure variables using generalized propensity scores estimated via generalized boosted models.

Mar 10, 2021
Journal Article

A Comparison of Multilevel Mediation Modeling Methods: Recommendations for Applied Researchers

In this paper, we discuss the strengths and limitations of multilevel modeling, with a focus on the indirect effects when the predictor, mediator, and dependent variable are all collected at the lowest level of data.

Feb 17, 2021
Tool

Chesapeake Bay Model Inventory and Selection Tool (MIST)

The Model Inventory and Selection Tool (MIST) is an interactive, searchable database of empirical, statistical, and conceptual models relevant to water- and climate-related planning and decisionmaking in the Chesapeake Bay watershed and beyond.

Feb 16, 2021

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RAND Topic:
Statistical Analysis Methodology

Topic Synonyms:
Statistical Modeling